


August Booth: A Work Of Fiction

by isxbella



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, i guess it could be august/emma if you really wanted it to be, idek enjoy it, so yeah :)))
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:00:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26047657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isxbella/pseuds/isxbella
Summary: Pinocchio was sent to a land without magic, entrusted with a baby princess and left alone for twenty-eight years. In those years, he became August.
Relationships: Pinocchio | August Booth & Emma Swan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Quote Prompt Memes





	August Booth: A Work Of Fiction

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [quoteonlyprompts](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/quoteonlyprompts) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> "I don't know if I can trust you"
> 
> I don’t really know where this came from. Sorry it’s not a Doctor Who one-shot, I’ll have one up soon!

“I don’t know if I can trust you,” she says, tucking a golden lock of hair behind her ear. 

He stops walking, his wooden leg a painful reminder not to lie. He avoids meeting her eyes as he answers. “Want to know a secret?”

Emma tilts her head, her smile teasing. “Sure.”

He grinds the dirt underfoot with his heel. “I don’t know either.”

“Why not?” she says. Her grin now says she thinks he’s joking, but he’s not. 

—

Once upon a time there was a boy. His hair was ginger and his intentions were pure. He lived in a cottage with his father and tried to be a good boy always. One day, they were visited by the Blue Fairy and told of an enchanted tree that offered protection against a terrible curse. The boy had always been told to tell the truth, yet his father asked the Blue Fairy to lie.

The boy found himself in a strange land, entrusted with a baby in a blanket that won’t stop crying. He lied again by saying his name is August, after his favourite time of the year in his hometown. But this land was nothing like his world, so the seven-year-old turned his back on the princess in her unstable crib and kept lying. In this world, his nose doesn’t grow as he creates his fantasies so it’s easy to forget where he came from. 

August became a work of fiction, a man dressed in leather pretending there was no such thing as magic. Pinocchio and his responsibilities were buried, but then they’re not because Emma Swan is out there and she needs him. 

He does the only thing he can, he returns to the baby he left to fend for herself, freshly hidden under another coat of lies. She wears leather too now, and is walking proof of his failure. When he meets her eyes, he wonders why the little boy who did nothing but lie was ever trusted with keeping her safe- how Pinocchio ever thought he could be good. 

—

“Have you ever wondered why I became an author, Emma?” August asks, his tone emotionless. 

Her smirk flickers, her brows creased. “Because you wanted to?”

He shakes his head, humour returning to his voice. “Most stories… most stories aren’t real. A  _ good  _ story is imaginary. In essence, Emma, I lie for a living.” 


End file.
